Learn From The Experts - A Black and White Masterclass

Work­ing in black and white sees the pho­tog­ra­ph­er choos­ing to ignore the vast array of colours in the image and skill­ful­ly exploit all the 256 shades of grey at their dis­pos­al. Cre­at­ing a black and white image is a huge devi­a­tion to cre­at­ing a colour image and one that all pho­tog­ra­phers should explore dur­ing their pho­to­graph­ic jour­ney. It requires both a dif­fer­ent way of see­ing, a change in the mind and the nur­tur­ing of an approach to reveal the sump­tu­ous images that can be made. It is these cre­ative skills that we will focus on dur­ing our time and har­ness­ing an under­stand­ing of the dif­fer­ences that will enable you to become a black and white artist.

In some ways, when con­sid­er­ing black and white pho­tog­ra­phy, the input of the artist can be more impor­tant than the sub­ject or real­i­ty and the raw cam­era file serves only as the start­ing point.

All expres­sive black and white images start with the mind and the soul of the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and your vision of how you see your sur­round­ings. It is this expres­sion of vision and the abil­i­ty to delve greater into your cre­ative work which is some­thing that we will explore in depth dur­ing this course.

Through shar­ing and dis­cus­sions, we will explore how pho­tog­ra­phers want their work to look. We will endeav­our to be curi­ous and unveil the hid­den world beyond colour and objective.

Black and white pho­tog­ra­phy empha­sizes form, com­po­si­tion, and tex­ture with height­ened clar­i­ty. In the absence of colour, the viewer’s atten­tion is direct­ed toward the play of light and shad­ow, the struc­ture of shapes, and the sub­tle gra­da­tions of tone. This approach refines the photographer’s skill in con­trol­ling dynam­ic range and mas­ter­ing an under­stand­ing of light. Artis­tic con­trol over these ele­ments allows for expres­sive sto­ry­telling, cre­at­ing mood and atmos­phere that can be haunt­ing, joy­ful or dramatic.

Dur­ing this course we will be pro­cess­ing your images because you are the peo­ple that want to learn how we do this. There will be demon­stra­tions and you will see Paul trans­form your files into an image that could com­fort­ably grace the pages of any pho­tog­ra­phy mag­a­zine or proud­ly hang on any wall. This course will con­cen­trate on how, why and to what extent you may need to use cer­tain tools, but also how to keep the process sim­ple allow­ing your­self to cel­e­brate your black and white image com­ing to life rather than wor­ry­ing about com­pli­cat­ed menus and dia­logue boxes.

The group meet­ings will take place between 3pm and 5pm GMT on the 9^th, 11^th, 13^th, 16^th, 18^th and 20^th Novem­ber. For each meet­ing we will be shar­ing tech­niques of pro­cess­ing your indi­vid­ual images and each ses­sion is record­ed and shared with the group.

We will be work­ing with your exist­ing library of images so there is no need to go out and get new images dur­ing this workshop.

In addi­tion, there will also be four 1 to 1 ses­sions sched­uled dur­ing the course. All ses­sions, both group and 1 to 1, will be record­ed and shared with you and will act as an up-to-the-minute learn­ing mate­r­i­al for your onward progression.